I bought an AMD Phenom II x6 1055T today, but it seems like it just runs at 800 MHz. I've tried to raise the multiplier and core volt to the right levels manually, but then it won't boot. I've also tried to disable Cool 'n Quiet, and to put a load on the CPU both to no avail. MSI's page claims the the cpu is supported so that shouldn't be the problem. I've upgraded the BIOS and it's at version 2.63 now. Do I need to do something else? Maybe add support in my operating systems (WinXP and Linux 3.2.x).

It seems like powersaving is the culprit here somehow, it's like it's stuck at the lowest speed and doesn't increase with load, and I've run out of ideas.

Edit: Got it working now, MSI's stupid auto updater was being stupid and didn't want to update at first, when it did everything works better. Cool n Quiet and Turbo Core doesn't work though, computer just crashes with it on, and flash crashes the CPU for some reason, but I got what I need.

Z-cpu and the windows system properties thingy on windows and 'cat /proc/cpuinfo' on linux, prime95 for load on windows and compiling xulrunner for load on linux. It does say 2.8 GHz on the BIOS, but if you look at the details it says 800 MHz. I find it strange too that it won't boot if I try to force it to run at higher speeds.

Found some drivers for windows too now and it is sort of solved now, it runs faster now, 2.2 GHz, but it doesn't ever seem to reach the rated 2.8 GHz, windows being windows guess, or the wrong drivers, at least it's bearable.

I really did, and it is off, sort of, It's set at x4 (doesn't boot if I fiddle with it, not even when I raise the vcore too to the specs), but with software I can get the CPU to run at 2.2 GHz at least. And the brings me to the problem at hand.

It just won't go higher than 2.2 GHz, this is what dmesg has to say on the issue:

This line raises a couple red flags for me - maybe your CPU is a newer stepping (though I didn't think there was more than one for that CPU ) and the motherboard doesn't know what to make of it. With proper BIOS support, you should be getting the actual model reported, I think:

I've used their BIOS update utility and it says I have the latest version (only download they offer to update the BIOS).

The multiplyer is already set to auto, setting it to anything else just results in a system that doesn't boot (something I find _very_ strange), setting mutiplyer and corevolt to the values that AMD specifies was one of the first things I tried.

Software is probably ruled out - I recall XP being finicky with AMD CPUs at one point, but you've tried their driver, and tried a completely different OS, and saw the same thing. I suspect you're not going to get anywhere on that front.

A couple guesses:

Something, likely the motherboard, is being funny about reporting the multiplier, but things are working fine. Do you have any idea if the CPU is actually running at 800MHz? If you want, pick a CPU benchmark and post the results - I've got an X6 at home I can* run at a few speeds for comparison. If this is the case, there might not be much you can do, but

Something, either the motherboard or the CPU (my money is on the CPU in this case, but it could go either way), is being stupid about power states. If you have a way to isolate one or the other, I'd do that and see which is the problem. If not, RMA 'em both.

*The fora really truly wants me to do this this week.

"Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we're going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I'm hell-bent on making it work." -Elon Musk